How to be a Legend

If you’ve read any of the rest of this blog then you’ve probably come to the conclusion I am capable of a pretty good rant. This is almost certainly a legacy from my dad, who is a world class ranter of epic proportions. 

My faither is definitely a Legend. It’s not that the maw isn’t a Legend at all, she is.  She’s a well good mum, does all appropriate mum things and also recognises a Big Trouble in Little China quote when she hears it. That is Cool and you know it.  If you don’t know it, then you should consult one of the Legend Lists that speaks of movies. It’s not up yet, but will be so show some patience my freaky darlings.

Out of the two of my parental units though my faither is definitely the most fun to write about and I think my mum would agree simply based on the fact he’s clearly mental.  Before I explain further I will say for the record that my faither is an intelligent guy with top DIY skills who looked after me perfectly well and that I would recommend him as dad.

We just actually can’t hang about that much together because of a personality clash in that
1. I like annoying people
and
2. He is Rage Incarnate. 

It’s a shame in many ways that I drive him mental because there’s lots of Real Man stuff he could show me how to do involving steel and wood. In fact his job is as trainer of these exact tpe of skills but I am “f*cking untrainable” apparently because my approach is to ask “why” things are done in certain ways and he thinks that’s cheek. Prompting the top teacherly response of “THAT’S THE WAY YOU DO IT ‘COS THAT’S THE WAY IT’S F*CKING DONE!”. We usually last about 2 minutes 49 seconds before “an incident”.

If I had to pick one word to describe my dad it would definitely be “Anger”. It’s not like he ever hit me or is a bully or anything even close to it. He just seems to love going nuts about things. He’s heard of this counting to ten and being calm and tranquil stuff  and it’s not for him

He’s a pretty simple man, I don’t mean that in he’s easily amused by shapes and colours I just mean his type of enjoyment requirements are not hard to fulfill and are in line with most of the world in that he likes having a bit of a sit in a comfy seat with whisky, smokes and John Wayne on the tellybox.  He doesn’t actually smoke anymore though because he used to drink moderately and smoke heavily and blow his top every 5 mins and he’s in his 50s so rather predictably had a heart attack. So out of drinking, smoking and going schtizo all the time he decided to drop the smoking.

That just made him angrier though. 

There is no room for racism or sexism with my dad since that implies there’s a group you’re actually well disposed towards in general. You probably do stuff all the time that he doesn’t like and will make him angry. I definitely do.

These include the following:

Driving too slow (if he’s behind you)
Driving too fast (if he’s in front of you)
Being on X-factor
Looking wrong (e.g. not a sensible haircut, any piercings or tattoos, “dressing like an idiot”, being WELL fat (okay I do this one too),bright colours, overly smiling (a sure sign of being a retard))
Not liking dogs
Forgetting he has right of way at every roundabout
Being born in the last 30 years
Not liking or knowing any John Wayne movies

The mechanisms of kicking off about any of the above used to have 3 stages or levels. 

Level 1 – Swearing about it
Level 2 – Swearing about it and face going red
Level 3 – Swearin about it and face going red with eyes bugged out and gesturing wildly

Since the heartattack though seems to just jump straight to Level 3 all the time.  I’m not that worried since he’s pretty much  unstoppable unless he gets a cold in which case he lies on the couch shouting for my mum to bring tea. (Flashbacks to the days of  him shouting at my mum to “Get him away from me” when I was tormenting him )

When he had the heartattack, they phoned the ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived he felt okay but got in after the paramedics said he should. This was lucky since he had another proper one on the way there. When I went to visit him in hospital the next day, he was in his dressing gown on his hands and knees in the break room fixing their TV and Tuner and explaining to the other old boy “This is how you do it son”. 

If you’ve ever seen “That 70′s  Show”, my dad is Red Foreman basically. 

Eventually he’ll see what I’ve written here and I’m reasonably confident of his reaction .. but it’s okay because I don’t live with him so won’t have to listen to him kick off.

(Sorry Mum)